Hi again :) A Sci-Fi variant of FORGE is definitely on my long list of future projects. Most recently I have been working on the Cyberpunk version. I also intend to do a Post Apoc variant, however all of these will take some time!
The next upcoming release for FORGE will be the 'Anniversary Edition' - this will include new cover art and all internal AI generated images are replaced with art by Chaoclypse. It also has the separate Paragon Rules rolled into the same book.
Hi there! Sorry I've taken so long to respond to you, I expect that you've already house ruled something of your own in by now? The way casting works with FORGE is really more like a mana system than spell slots (in the 5e sense anyway, with individual slots per level). E.g. a 6th level caster with 6 'casts per day' would be able to cast the same spell 6 times if they wanted to, before being spent until they rest.
I did initially try to implement a more involved mana system, with higher circle/level spells having more of a cost, but it became a little bit convoluted and straying from the simplistic design goals.
Roll to cast should fit in fairly easily. I would roll d20 +relevant attribute check bonus against 10+ the spell level to cast successfully. Nothing to stop you incorporating the crit results straight from shadowdark either, if you like those, or you could roll a random event where it is automatically assigned a positive or negative spin, depending on whether it was a nat 20 or 1!
Let me know how you got on! :)
Hi there! Sorry for taking a while to get back to you.. I really appreciate your support! It's a shame that some people think that way, it really isn't my intention to take advantage of people using AI art - I'm trying to give something to the community for free, so quite the opposite! I regret the fact that I needed to use it, but I hadn't dreamed that FORGE would be as popular as it is.
So yes, I really do want to replace all of the artwork, and that is the goal. At the moment Chaoclypse has finished a replacement cover image that has an awesome Conan vibe, but I've still got to sort the remaining images throughout. I'll have a quick chat with him to see what the plan is, but I also quite like the idea of community submissions (as long as nobody thinks I'm trying to take advantage!! 😜)
Please feel free to contact me on discord if you wish to talk about this further. In the meantime, I really hope that you're enjoying playing with FORGE!
Hi there! Thank you for the kind words. Yes, the very talented Chaoclypse is kindly creating alternative art for FORGE.
I will make an update post to let everyone know when that is complete and what form it will take (once we've worked out the details).
It looks like you are using Samsung Notes too :) All of the sheets were originally hand drawn on my tablet in Samsung Notes, so I wonder if it has converted it back to SDOC from PDF? Very interesting!
If you want to make sure you don't accidentally erase the background, you can import as a PDF page template. This is how I play on my tablet. I guess this also means you can make mods to the sheets as you see fit, like I do :)
Hi there! The above advice is great, and actually ties in nicely with an addon that I've been putting together that helps facilitate true solo play - Paragon Mode. Both systems essentially toughen up and increase the capabilities of a lone adventurer (or two) allowing you to throw more at them.
The playtest for FORGE Paragon Mode is currently on the Discord, if you wanted to check it out. It is functionally similar to Scarlet Heroes, however more tuned for the FORGE primary/secondary attributes and (hopefully) simplifies some things.
With regards to balancing encounters anyway, I suppose the normal response you will get is that OSR games are inherently unbalanced.. which isn't particularly helpful I know. I suppose you could say that a 1HD/1st Level enemy should be roughly equivalent to a 1st level Player Character, however that would also depend on the character's equipment and what capabilities the enemy had. I think it is important to remember that in OSR games it is generally not a good idea to try and go toe-to-toe with an enemy, as you would in more modern versions of D&D. Instead, you are encouraged to think outside the current combat engagement - can you use terrain/topple scenery/bypass the encounter with stealth or diplomacy? Ultimately it isn't as straightforward as you were hoping!
I think you get a feel for it, the more encounters you play/GM. I have seen a group of 6 level 1 adventurers clear out an entire goblin/bugbear cave (30+ enemies) with clever use of poison on their food supplies... there will almost always be a way for the players to win if they come up with a good plan!
Hi there streamlap, thank you for your interest and I apologise for taking such a long time to respond (for some reason I missed the notification that you had left a comment!)
Do you mean 'Dungeon World'? That is a Powered by the Apocalypse (PBTA) style game, which is slightly different to a game based on D&D mechanics, like FORGE. PBTA games tend to lean more heavily into the fiction, and often run best with multiple players working together to interpret the emerging story. Personally, I find FORGE easier to play as a solo game than PBTA, as I benefit from the increased mechanical crunch as a scaffold to hang my story from. If you prefer a PBTA style game, I can recommend Ironsworn as an alternative to DW, as that is designed to be played solo.
Hi there! I'm glad you're enjoying the game :)
With regards to your comments - the 'Weapon' and 'Armour' links are to the two nested tables within 'Magic Item' at the top of that page (I didn't necessarily need to put bookmarks to these, but decided that it was useful even for non-magic items discovered as treasure - e.g. the hyperlinks from the non-magic items on the table opposite). To save on space, it is the only table where the type of weapon or armour can be randomly determined. It would have potentially been clearer if I had included a separate weapon/armour table that both 'Magic Item' and 'Non-Magic Item' linked to, but space was at a premium!
I do agree that 'Magic Item Effect' would benefit from having a bookmark, so I will include that in the next update to the pdf.
Thanks again!
Hi there, thank you for the kind words.
With regards to the +10 and +5 to primary and secondary checks at 10th level, on average that relates to 80% and 55% chance to succeed against the default target of 15.
If this were for a saving throw, it isn't too dissimilar to B/X which has saving throw chances between 50% and 70% for the average level 10 fighter (A level 10 dwarf would have a 90% chance to succeed a save vs death).
Attack bonuses are largely similar too, a level 10 character with STR as primary (e.g. a fighter type) would have +10 to melee attacks, which is close to the base +7 of a B/X level 10 fighter. Similarly a level 10 thief, with STR secondary would have only +5 to melee attacks, identical to B/X.
Skills-wise, a B/X level 10 thief would have an 85% (5/6 chance) to succeed at most thief-y things, this is pretty similar to having a level 10 DEX primary character in FORGE.
In general I find that characters in FORGE are ever so slightly stronger than their B/X counterparts, however not noticeably so.
In play testing, we have occasionally had a character make it to the higher echelons, at which point they are definitely expected to succeed at most of the things they attempt.. however I fully expect a Dragon or similar high level creature to make short work of them should they throw themselves into combat without proper planning! :)
Strange, it should be working. I've replaced it with a new link that has no expiry date, same link here: FORGE Discord
Let me know if you have any problems.
Thank you for your feedback. I appreciate that the restriction on carry capacity might not be everyone's cup of tea.
Just going back to your point about a low level magic-user only being able to carry 2 or 3 spells - this is effectively similar to how many spells a magic user has access to in, e.g. OSE. They have only a single spell at level 1, 2 at level 2, 3 at level 3.. etc. Whilst RAW a FORGE magic-user could potentially have 3 runestones at level 1. Yes this would be at the expense of other gear, but the option is still available to them.
Whilst I do agree that the rate at which you gain inventory slots as a magic-user increases more slowly than the max number of spells able to be memorised in OSE, the earlier availability of higher circle spells (e.g. 6th circle at level 6 instead of level 11) swings the balance quite considerably back in the magic-users favour.
In any case, as I mentioned previously, please feel free to increase carry capacity to your preference. For example, using (STR check bonus + 15) inventory slots will give you more wiggle room at lower levels without breaking anything.
I hope that helps.
Runestones and writs are one per spell. This is designed to be slightly restrictive - more in line with the low number of spells memorised by magic users and clerics in b/x d&d. At some point your character might well own several more runestones than they can carry, this means they will need to choose which ones to take with them (similar to memorising), or come up with ways to carry more, e.g. hiring a porter.
Feel free to join us on the FORGE discord where we've talked about this, as well as many other topics. There are also options for increasing carry capacity if RAW feels too restrictive - everyone has different preferences!
The book was originally written for A4, so the A5 format is a scaled down version (65% scaling) to fit within the POD margins. I'd say that it's perfectly readable, but perhaps this might enable you to make a judgement yourself (Full size A4 on the left, A5 on the right and ruler with centimeters along the bottom - zoom on a tablet or phone and match up the ruler with your own.. then you'll know exactly how the text will look):
Hope that helps! :)
Hi there, thanks for your comment. So, I actually rephrased the bit early in the book regarding 'room traps' and 'treasure traps' - these are now defined as 'simple traps' and 'complex traps', with complex traps requiring thieves tools to disarm. In general, I'd say anything linked to opening a door or chest would be classed as complex. A pit, a hinged trapdoor, a rope attached to an alarm bell etc are all simple traps. I leave this up to the GM to determine, based on the description of the trap and the fiction.
With trap/dungeon generation, unguarded treasure appears on the discovery table and traps appear on the danger table. On delving deeper you can get danger+discovery together, so that would be one hardcoded way to link the two.
Outside of this, you can also interpret unguarded treasure in different ways.. i recently had a room in a crumbling crypt in which my PC found a gem as unguarded treasure.. i decided this was lying amongst the rubble and i wasn't suspicious of a trap. If a treasure makes you suspicious of a trap based on the fiction, I'd definitely ask the oracle.. whilst playing solo I often do this when my character is right in front of the treasure and I say that is him actually checking for traps (1 turn passes), that reflects what would happen at the table with a real GM. Both my character and I find out if there is a trap at the same time.
I would rule that a character skilled in dungeon exploration or thievery should always automatically discover a trap, but I often use the oracle or an attribute check to determine if they can disarm it depending on the fiction (e.g. He cuts the wire connected to the wall - does this disarm it? (Likely Odds) if it doesn't, I'll give him a chance to roll out of the way of whatever trap springs). It keeps a lot of the tension present whilst playing solo.
You can certainly ask the oracle about potential traps on treasure hoards owned by monsters.. but the likelihood will again depend on the type of monster etc.
I hope that helps somewhat? Let me know if I misunderstood.
Hey, thanks again for your comment. You've actually picked up on a huge copy paste mistake there. All the tables are put together in excel and then copied in.. I'll definitely get that fixed straight away, especially as its such an important table!
the 5-6 next to Moderate Potions is supposed to be 2-6. As in, roll d6 to find out if you've found one of the simple potions or if you get to roll d66 on the larger table. I think i need to make that more obvious.
For the clarifications:
I generally handwave thirst and water. One group I know include it as part of a Ration, which seems to work well enough. I think anything beyond that and it starts to defeat the simplification idea behind forge.
I don't, actually. I generally insert the creature wherever I initially imagined it to be. But I think there's a good argument for adding encounter range onto the bottom of page 37.
I admit that the variable potency of crafted Potions probably works best for healing Potions and poisons, but I think it's also interesting if someone tries to brew a potion of fly, but they end up with levitate.. or if they were trying for a potion of strength and ended up with giant strength. I think this will definitely require some GM thinking. Alternatively, you can ignore variable potency for Potions where it's a bit ambiguous, and just roll d4 on complication/added bonus.
Correct, runes and writs all contain a single spell, however that spell may be cast multiple times, based on how many spells a character can cast per day.
I have a fair few other fixes that i need to make, in addition to those above, however I'm hopeful that I'll be able to upload v1.0 by the end of the week.
My intention was that all potion effects should last 1 hour, as it makes it significantly easier to adjudicate. I've actually added the following note to the potions section under treasures, as I also thought it wasn't immediately obvious - "Potion effects, if temporary, last 1 hour (poison is potent on a blade for two hits, or up to 1 hour before drying up – save with advantage vs the 2nd hit)".
I'm getting closer to v1.0. I've revamped the Wilderness section, which now includes a half-page set of terrain-based feature tables, with splits for water, plant and land features. I've tried to keep them as concise as possible, but results like "Dust bowl", "Creek" or "Wildflowers" should be enough to send you in the right direction! Terrain feature is also now tied into the expanded wilderness discovery table too.
I've added some tables for resources - types of stone, wood and metals (e.g. for trade or construction/item crafting), as well as a section on plants (both poisonous and edible) which can also be used as a "what was found on a foraging attempt" roll. On the whole, I'm much happier with the wilderness section - it feels packed, without being bloated.
I've also added a page that goes into detail about incorporating followers into your game, as well as breaking down mechanical differences between hirelings, mercenaries and companions.
Hi there, thank you very much for your kind words and feedback!
I do agree that the wilderness section could be fleshed out slightly - my goal is to try and include everything needed to run a solo game, all in one book. Plus you are definitely right about the two page spread layout.
I am conscious of not making tables too prescriptive, as I find that tends to hamper imagination, however I totally get that others may feel differently. As you say, I think expanding the wilderness discovery table one level deeper (similar to the dungeon discovery table) will be a step in the right direction, without overdoing it.
After seeing the recent Dolmenwood PDF, I was also thinking that I could add a table or two expanding on foraging in the wilderness too, such as example plants and herbs (e.g. edible, inedible/poisonous). I'll have a play around and see what looks good. I do need to be careful, as I want to give people the tools to easily create their own game worlds, rather than force feed them made up plant names from my own setting :)
Thank you again for your comment - collaboration is key to creating the best product!
Thank you so much for your comment. I'm really glad you're enjoying the game!
The way I play hirelings is that they usually start off as generic 'Footman', 'Archer', etc recorded on the notes and hirelings sheet (sometimes with names assigned). They are presumed to have their own inventory etc but I don't track it as I'm effectively treating them as mercenaries. I'll put a tick in two attribute boxes for each to mark them as primary, either randomly (d6) or whatever I think suits their role. These hirelings are generally for above-ground wagon guarding or similar.
My PC's actual companions were generally elevated from hireling status (or met through other circumstances etc), at which point I flesh them out on the companion sheet, tracking inventory, conditions, experience, etc, and these guys follow my PC down into dungeons and get a half share of loot, as well as an increased wage (though more often than not I remove the wage if they are getting a share).
Mechanically there isn't much difference between hirelings and companions, except companions can gain xp and become stronger with your PC. They should all hopefully be quite quick to run. I'll generally establish more character details for companions too, such as appearance, quirks and motivations, however I track that separately on my character list.
The total number of followers that a PC can have (CHA check bonus +2) are the number of hirelings and companions combined. However, when playing solo I think it's fine to be a bit less strict with this.
I'll definitely add a section on hirelings and companions to my to-do list, thank you!
Hi there! Thank you, I'm really glad that you like it!
If you check the top of page 11, I mention rolling 3d6 for each attribute in turn (3d6 down the line - STR > DEX > CON etc.) This will generally result in lower attribute scores than in more modern versions of d&d, but also they have slightly less mechanical impact too..
I'm hoping to release 1.0 soon, I just want to make sure I've got all the wrinkles ironed out.
